


lost amongst the leaves

by marit



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America's Fake Death, Comfort, Established Relationship, Funeral Scene, I mean basically that's it. That's the story., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:48:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4981519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marit/pseuds/marit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many reasons why it’s annoying that people know Bucky’s alive now, but he has decided that chief among those reasons is that he is expected to show up at Steve’s funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lost amongst the leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This is the middle of a story. You don't get the backstory or the end. The rest that I had written for this wasn't working so I cut it all out, wrote in a sex scene, and called it a day. I mean, this came from a line about Steve taking a jacket off Bucky so I'd say I succeeded in that part at least. A jacket is indeed removed. So are other clothing items. That maybe means I succeeded very much. Also, just FYI because it segues in here: the rating isn't really explicit-explicit. It's more like a soft explicit. Lowercase. I am playing it safe just in case. Maybe I shouldn't talk down my own story but basically this is just here so I quit staring at it.
> 
> The title is from Daughter's [Tomorrow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqxJ5oC7s1E).

There are many reasons why it’s annoying that people know Bucky’s alive now, but he has decided that chief among those reasons is that he is expected to show up at Steve’s funeral. 

It’s stupid because Steve obviously can’t be at his own memorial, but Bucky wants nothing more than for him to be at his side. He absolutely hates it, and it puts him on edge from the moment he steps out of the car some government official sends to pick him up at the hotel he is theoretically staying at, some sort of weird “We’re sorry your best friend from childhood died but please don’t hate us” conciliatory gesture couched in something about safety and privacy from the media.

The point is, he hates it, thoroughly and with more feeling than he really expected. He thought, perhaps foolishly, that knowing Steve was actually alive would be enough, that maybe he could ignore the whole farce and just glide through emotionless and calm. It’s the ridiculousness of it, though, the people there simply to say they went to Captain America’s funeral, the faces he doesn’t recognize at a greater number than the ones who probably really cared about Steve. Bucky was all for keeping everyone else out of it, something simple just for appearance’s sake, but Natasha convinced him that they needed to do it properly so that there could be some sense of closure and end-point to the whole thing. He can only hope she’s right, or this isn’t worth it at all.

It’s the horribleness of having all these people who clearly didn’t care about Steve but only cared about Captain America as a device for governmental use, but it’s also the fact that at every turn it screams, by its very purpose, “Steve is dead.” It’s not true, obviously. Steve is waiting for him back at the apartment, alive and mostly healed. He’s probably pacing or pretending to read or trying to force himself into doing something productive, wound too tight but still there, alive. He isn’t that body they had cremated, everything careful and private as per the (thankfully very real) terms of Steve’s will so that no one could try to get any sort of sample from his body for whatever reasons they call science. He has nothing to do with this funeral, really, in anything but name--but it’s still a reminder of what could have been, what might have transpired, what might still happen at any point. 

So Bucky despises it and desperately wants to leave. Natasha and Sam keep him there, both physically and mentally. Natasha’s mostly quiet while Sam fills in the silence, his voice low and reassuring, and Bucky tries to ignore everyone looking at them in their front corner. Something must warn them off, because anyone who even starts approaching them seems to veer off at the last moment. 

The service itself, of course, goes for too long. They’ve managed to limit the number of speeches and posturing, but only inasmuch as cutting it down to people who had actually spoken to Steve more than once in his life. Bucky refused to say anything, which he can get away with because no one finds it surprising. A not-awful priest speaks in between everyone else because Steve’s family had been nominally Catholic and it seemed like the easiest, most neutral way to keep things moving along. Besides, it fits into the Good Old American thing, the Christianity, even if it is Catholicism. The priest somehow keeps most of what he says fairly benign and religion-free anyway, despite the outfit. 

Natasha says something brief because one of them has to. Sam’s been doing most of the media things up until this point and everyone is yearning for someone else’s reaction anyway. It’s heartfelt and touching for all that it isn’t based in reality. She returns to her seat beside Bucky when the priest takes over again, and slips her hand into his, his left one, apparently unconcerned about anyone who might be watching. She is pale but completely composed otherwise, not that he would expect any different. It’s clear she’s not entirely unaffected, though, that it’s not all an act, especially as things drag on, so he allows the touch and simply stares at the lower left corner of one of the picture frames, the one where Steve’s in full costume and determined, the American Hero, until it’s all done with. 

It finally finishes with a video montage that’s a combination of World War II propaganda recordings and news footage, polished enough that Bucky wonders if it was prepared before this all happened just for the eventuality that Steve would, at some point, die, and whoever it was decided to be ready for it. It’s a bit grandiose and unrealistic, the image everyone wants Captain America to be, but that’s all of this, really: fake and built up too much, more of a lie than anyone outside of Sam, Natasha and Bucky know.

It does end, though. Bucky’s not allowed to flee immediately, Natasha’s hand moving from his up to his elbow, holding him in place without any real force. Sam stands beside them, hands in his pockets, silent now. They are some of the last to leave the church because Bucky’s reluctant to push through the crowd and something holds him back from slipping out a different entrance, some vestige of his childhood, perhaps, that makes the idea of it an oddly uncomfortable notion.

The air outside is crisp with autumn. It’s actually rather nice looking, the leaves reds and yellows and mostly still attached to the trees with the absence of any great wind the past week. Some swirl down from a tree Clint Barton is leaning against, and he catches Natasha’s eye, his gaze skittering over Bucky. He can’t help but tense, not wanting at all to associate with any of the Avengers past or present. Natasha glances at him, then squeezes his elbow. He can’t feel it, really, beyond a sort of pressure picked up by the sensors in the metal, but it’s a sort of comfort nevertheless. 

She uses his shoulder to keep her balance and pushes up on her toes to press her lips to his cheek. “Take Sam and go,” she says into his ear. “I’ll let them know you were hysterical and didn’t want anyone to see it.” 

It makes the breath of a laugh escape from his nose despite himself, and it offsets, a small amount, the odd bereftness he feels. She straightens out, gives him a last soft smile before letting go of him finally. She leaves without another word, her heels clicking loudly on the cement of the sidewalk before she walks off onto the grass where they rustle the leaves instead. He doesn’t doubt it’s deliberate, an effort to at least temporarily direct people’s attention to her instead of Bucky as she joins the group of Avengers, who are standing a bit separate from the rest of the people milling around. Those people undoubtedly hope to either commiserate the nation’s great loss or wish for something dramatic and interesting will happen. Probably the latter, he thinks bitterly.

Sam’s largely silent in the car because they can’t be certain no one’s listening in. They go to Bucky’s hotel first, and Sam leaves in the car after a final clap to Bucky’s back, a soft squeeze where neck meets shoulder. Bucky hopes that wherever he and Natasha are staying is nice, comfortable, because they both look as worn as Bucky feels, for all that Natasha hides it better than Sam. 

He forces himself to stick around the hotel for an hour to the minute. He passes the time by messing things up enough to make housekeeping think the room is being used before he finally allows himself to return home, or as close to it as he has right now.

 

 

He returns from Steve’s funeral exhausted and red-eyed. 

Steve’s standing a few feet back from the entrance, tense and wary and on edge. Bucky shuts the door behind him and then they just stand for a moment, silent and looking at one another, and he watches as Steve visibly pushes aside his own feelings and steps forward, forced confidence and sureness that nevertheless still translates into real steadiness. He pulls Bucky in and just holds him, and Bucky nearly collapses forward. He smells like Steve, horribly, irrevocably, Steve alive and here and not at all in any real part of that funeral. It was all a lie, a guise, and Bucky knows that and knew that then but the lies kept creeping in anyway, until now with Steve’s arms around his back and his hand threaded through Bucky’s hair, and so he reaches up himself and grips him harder than he really means to and lets a small part of his own tension leave.

It’s many minutes later when Steve leans back a bit, enough to press his lips to Bucky’s forehead, the side of his nose, his left cheekbone, the side of his mouth. He asks into the skin there, “Can we just pretend all of that doesn’t exist for awhile?” and Bucky can’t help the breath of relief that leaves him, that unwinds him just a tiny bit further. 

He doesn’t trust his own voice so he just nods and Steve lands a kiss on his lips finally, brief but sure. 

“Thank you,” he says, and then steps back further. He doesn’t let go of Bucky, just leads him by the hand through the apartment to the bedroom. He shuts the door, and it always helps, a bit, to block out the world, as if that door somehow sets them aside in a completely different place. It changes the sound of the room and the reality of the rest of the apartment, though, the things they should be doing but aren’t. 

It’s maybe not the moment for this, or maybe it is. It’s nearly 7 o’clock and they should perhaps be thinking of what to eat, or what the next step is now that the funeral is over with, or the million other details that go into convincing everyone that a very public figure is dead. But Steve asked to ignore that all, and Bucky really wants to, so maybe it is the time. It’s comfort and carefulness because Bucky just buried Steve and Steve long ago had to bury Bucky, if not literally, and at least Bucky knew it wasn’t real. Steve didn’t have that, and he can’t imagine how much more awful it must have been when just the lie has derailed Bucky so much. He feels weak for that but he can’t seem to shove it aside.

Steve lets go of his hand to let Bucky remove the knives from his person, which he had tried to resist adding to the outfit but had eventually given in to. They are few in number but still there, and he hands them to Steve to place on the dresser before he reaches up to slide Bucky’s jacket off his shoulders, careful and slow as if it is more delicate than it is. Bucky sort of wants to just burn the whole outfit because he knows he won’t be able to wear it again. It has now taken on the property of Steve’s Funeral Suit and that’s not a property he wants in his life at all. He lets Steve do what he wants, though, move as slowly as he cares to, because he isn’t sure what else to offer him.

He lets the jacket fall to the floor to pool around the backs of Bucky’s feet despite his careful removal. His hands skim down Bucky’s arms to the cuffs of his shirt to undo them, and then back up to the buttons down the front. He pauses on the third to duck forward to kiss him, slow and deep, and Bucky bites his bottom lip just to hear the gust of air that approximates a moan.

He pulls back only enough to let himself concentrate again on the buttons. He’s so slow that Bucky wants to push him on faster, to step forward until they hit the bed. He ignores the urge, though, just slides his hands under Steve’s t-shirt at either side of his waist. He hasn’t changed since the morning, is still wearing the old shirt and pyjama bottoms that he had slept in. He’s showered, Bucky can tell, and his hair has dried soft and fluffy. It’s endearing but speaks to his frame of mind, that he hadn’t put himself together today, that he’d simply put on the same clothing he had already been wearing before the shower and hadn’t done his hair at all. Steve’s too often so careful to look put together and competent. 

It says so many things about the day that it makes Bucky want to press closer even more. He digs his fingers in a bit, low enough that it can’t hurt anything that might still be healing from the incidents leading up to this whole fake funeral, and Steve meets his eyes, so close from where he’s standing. He must read something there because he says, quiet, “I’m fine.”

Bucky doesn’t believe him but he nods, lets go enough for Steve to finally get the last of the buttons undone. The shirt joins the jacket on the floor and he takes the opportunity to pull Steve’s up and over his head as well, to let it fall to the side before he steps forward to connect skin-to-skin, to press his lips to Steve’s shoulder and breathe him in at the curve between neck and shoulder. 

His hands settle back on Steve’s sides. His left arm feels heavy in a way that it only does when he’s exhausted or enormously stressed, a weight settling in across and down his back. As if Steve can sense it, he runs a hand down the line of Bucky’s spine and back up, digs the fingers of his right hand in a bit just below his neck. His left hand works open his belt in the scant space between their bodies, but there’s no real urgency or intention there.

“Shoes,” he says, nudging Bucky’s foot with his own before stepping back fully. Bucky tries not to feel too bereft at the loss of contact again, just leans over to pull off his shoes and socks. He undoes his pants and adds them to the pile of clothes left in the middle of the floor when he steps out of them, pushing his shoes aside. 

Steve pulls him down onto the bed then. Neither of them is fully naked but that’s not really the point--it’s about touch as a comfort and simply because they can, because Bucky just attended Steve’s funeral and he’s still here, alive and nudging Bucky until he’s flat on his back and Steve is along his right side, probably putting pressure on wounds he shouldn’t be putting pressure on but that he will insist are healed enough. Bucky doesn’t bring it up because it’s nice, really, to be pinned partially under him, to have Steve’s hand rubbing comforting and sure, occasionally digging in harder just above the line where metal meets skin. 

They’re quiet and otherwise still, awake but unhurried in a way that rarely seems to happen. Or maybe it will continue to now, now that Steve’s dead and Bucky’s mourning. 

It’s nearly an hour later when he feels unwound again and like maybe he’s ready to do more than simply lie there, whatever that ends up entailing. He reaches over to run his left hand down the side of Steve’s back until his fingers settle at the line of his ribs. Steve has been silent but he’s still awake, still plastered along Bucky’s side and barely avoiding putting his arm to sleep through careful weight distribution. He seems more relaxed as well, though, and shifts a bit at Bucky’s touch. 

“Would this count as necrophilia?” he asks.

Steve’s laugh is short, a brief gust of air into Bucky’s shoulder. “That’s horrible.”

“Not a good pick-up line?” 

“Not at all.”

“Too early?”

“Yes, that’s the problem. Try again in a few months,” and Bucky’s pleased to feel a bit of a smile against his shoulder.

He takes the chance, abruptly flips them so he’s hovering over Steve, holding up his own weight and mindful of Steve’s injuries. 

“You’re the most alive looking dead person I’ve ever seen,” Bucky says, and there’s a fondness underlying the words that doesn’t entirely match what he’s actually saying, outweighs it entirely too much.

Steve’s smile goes soft and a bit sardonic. “I could say the same about you.”

And it hits Bucky, then, as he looks down at Steve’s face, that this is their life now: two dead men who aren’t really dead. They somehow started in the first half of the 20th century as two ordinary kids from Brooklyn and ended up here. So much has brought them both to this single moment that it’s utterly ridiculous that they’re even there at all, and the hugeness of it all catches in Bucky’s throat.

He fills his absence of words by lowering his head enough to kiss Steve, and it comes across more desperate than he really means it to. Steve responds in kind, though, reaches up to pull Bucky down further. He stubbornly keeps his weight up, more than he normally would, ignores the part of him that wants to melt into Steve despite all of his common sense involving rib injuries. 

Steve makes a frustrated noise and simultaneously tries to pull Bucky closer and to push up at him. Bucky puts a hand on his hip bone, holds him down so he has to stay still. 

“I’m fine. I’m not going to break,” Steve pulls away to say, sounding less annoyed than he would if he weren’t a bit short of breath.

“No, but it will still hurt,” Bucky responds, because Steve often needs to be reminded of that, that just because he will return to perfect health doesn’t mean the current pain is inconsequential. 

He cuts off the chance for any further protest by lowering himself a bit again, their faces close, letting Steve rest in the anticipation. He knows how to distract him, knows how to get Steve out of his frustration at the world and himself--he hasn’t forgotten that much, at least. 

He holds himself up on his bent left arm, gently dances the fingers of his right hand along Steve’s bare collarbone before moving his hand down, a harder swipe across a nipple, gentle again down his ribs. The bruising left there is still harsh despite the odds, a testament to how bad it was in the first place by its continued existence, yellow and green as it heals and fades.

He forces himself not to dwell there, to move his hand more central and a bit lower, to let it rest on Steve’s stomach. Steve watches him carefully, relaxed despite his supposed annoyance. Bucky looks back at him for a moment before sitting up long enough to give himself balance and the use of both hands to nudge Steve up just high enough to pull pants and underwear down together so that he can fling them off the bed. 

“You’re beautiful even with all the bruising,” Bucky says, looking down at Steve. It sort of slips out of his mouth without him meaning it to say anything, but that’s fine. He’s not particularly embarrassed because it’s not anything new that he thinks Steve’s good=looking, even if he doesn’t generally call him beautiful. Steve, predictably, blushes like he always does when anyone pays him a compliment that sounds genuine enough. 

He also predictably doesn’t answer and instead reaches for Bucky to pull him down again into a heated kiss. Bucky puts his hand back on Steve’s hip as a reminder to keep still, and it’s minutes later when Steve pulls away just far enough to say, “Are you ever going to touch me? Also, you’re wearing too many clothes still.”

“So impatient,” Bucky says, his lips brushing against the skin to left of Steve’s mouth as he talks. He nevertheless shifts enough to somewhat awkwardly push off his underwear, the last of the material between them. Steve immediately reaches out blindly, his view hidden by the shadows of the darkness of the room and Bucky’s body hovering just over and to the side of Steve’s. His fingers jab into Bucky’s hip before he orients himself and manages to grip him. Bucky groans and rather unintentionally pushes his hips forward into Steve’s, momentarily trapping his hand between them before he pulls back again.

The angle is awkward but Bucky’s reluctant to move too much for fear of unintentionally putting more weight than he means to onto Steve. “This would be so much easier if you’d let me be on top,” Steve says, offering up the other solution. 

Bucky can’t entirely help the moan that escapes his throat, the way his hips stutter forward again. “God, shut up,” he says, the words entirely without heat. He can’t help but like it, a bit, when Steve gets that slightly petulant command in his voice. “Stop it. Arguing. You’re hur--” he’s cut off but Steve squeezing and pulling up, running his thumb over the tip. 

“Not fair,” he says after a moment, breathless, into the skin of Steve’s neck. “It stands. You fell off a cliff. I’m not--”

He’s cut off again as Steve picks up speed, and he bites down on Steve’s shoulder in reprimand without words. He shifts to relieve some of the pressure on his shoulder holding him up and it helps with the angle a bit, lets him balance enough to start moving his right hand over Steve’s skin again. He tries to concentrate, tries to make it less aimless and more intentional but he doesn’t entirely manage because Steve’s too good at this, knows by now exactly what will get Bucky off the fastest and he does that now, doesn’t let Bucky drag it out like he was going to. It’d be annoying if it wasn’t so wonderful. 

It’s not long before he comes, mostly on Steve’s side but also onto the sheets. He collapses sideways, a bit, away from Steve, lets himself gather a bit of breath while Steve waits mostly patiently before he can get on task.

“Hate you,” he says into Steve’s mouth. “Have to change the bed now,” he says into his jawline. “Can’t believe I just came on a dead guy’s injured ribs,” he says, trailing sloppy kisses down Steve’s chest now. It moves with Steve’s laughter.

“It’s nice that you care so much, but it’s fine. I’m f--” and this time Bucky gets to cut off his speech when he suddenly takes Steve into his mouth and makes him breathe sharply inward instead. He has to hold down Steve’s hips again when they try to arch up. At this point it’s almost useless with how Steve’s straining his ribs by breathing heavily, but, well, Bucky wouldn’t have started this if he cared that much about that. Besides, it serves a dual purpose with frustrating Steve and ramping up both his impatience and subsequent arousal. It works either way. 

Bucky decides to not drag it out since Steve hadn’t and that probably indicates something. Steve’s hard enough that it doesn’t really take that long before he comes, his breath stuttering, stopping, stuttering outward again on a moan. 

Bucky rolls, after, his head resting against the side of Steve’s hip. He’ll move eventually, be nice and get a washcloth or something for Steve so he doesn’t have to sleep sticky, but for now he’s overly content where he is. Steve’s fingers thread into Bucky’s hair and rub gently against the top of his head. 

He pushes himself up later, gets two glasses of water and a cloth that he scrubs over Steve’s torso, mindful still of the bruising, and dries him off with the half left dry. He throws it into the laundry basket and lets himself fall back onto the bed, pushing at the blankets until he can pull them up over them. It’s cold now, the temperature dropping as the sun goes down and a fall wind finally picks up. It’s not their apartment, just a temporary one Bucky rented under a fake name, and apparently neither of them thought to turn the heat on. He can’t be bothered to get out of bed again, but thankfully Steve doesn’t get as cold as he used to. They both try to avoid it, though, having had not great experiences with it in the past.

He’s still unsettled, somehow, but he manages to start drifting off to sleep eventually, the sheer mental exhaustion of the day catching up to him. Nearly an hour later, Steve’s voice startles him awake and he tenses, immediately on alert in that way he can’t ever seem to shake. 

“Sorry,” Steve says, reaching across his own body to run a hand down Bucky’s arm. He doesn’t offer an explanation and falls silent again.

“What did you say?” Bucky eventually prods. He doesn’t want to lose the contact so he shuffles forward on his side enough that his front pushes up against Steve’s side. 

Steve’s quiet still, his fingers shifting absentmindedly against Bucky’s right arm, so he gives him a couple more minutes before nudging his toes against Steve’s shin, prodding him into answering. 

“Do you think I can do it?” Steve finally asks into the quiet and the dark. 

“Yes,” Bucky says, even though he doesn’t know specifically what Steve is asking about. It’s stupid and maybe a bit glib, but it’s true nevertheless: he does believe Steve could do most things. 

“Live without it, I mean,” he elaborates, like Bucky had asked for clarification instead of giving agreement. “Being Captain America. Fighting someone.”

“Well, we’re still fighting people, you’re just doing it with even more secrecy now,” Bucky points out. “But yes,” he says, because Steve doesn’t need simple logic right now. “If you want to, you can. Do you want to?” It’s a discussion they’ve already had, a question Bucky knows the answer to and had checked numerous times before they actually let this ploy play out fully. He wouldn’t have let it happen if Steve had wanted otherwise, but sometimes it’s good to remind him that his own opinion matters, that there are things beyond what other people want him to do. 

Steve doesn’t answer immediately, though, and then he says, quieter than before, “Maybe. I don’t know. I want to know whether I can do it.”

It makes Bucky pause, not because it’s necessarily surprising (he knows Steve will never straight out say yes, he wants this) but because it deserves a somewhat satisfying answer. It does every time Steve shows hesitance. 

“I’ll help,” he finally settles on. He places a hand on Steve’s forearm, gentle, not holding him down, letting him move away if he wants to. It’s inadequate and not particularly useful as a whole, and he has to shove aside the anxiety he feels at being unable to reassure Steve. It seems to help a bit, though. Steve doesn’t move away or argue. Instead he turns his head to look at Bucky, his face partly lit by the artificial street light filtering through the curtained window.

“Don’t tax yourself on my behalf,” he says, and it’s both joking and serious. 

He lets Steve have the small amount of levity by deliberately lightening his tone. “Not at all. I can do this in my sleep. I’ve been helping you along since we were kids, remember?” 

Steve smiles at him, indulgence around the edges. “Sure. Whatever you say.” 

“It’s true. Don’t worry about me.” 

Steve’s gaze is still steady when he says, too honest, “I’ll always worry.” 

Bucky pushes his forehead into Steve’s shoulder, places his lips against his skin and says, when he moves away a bit again, “I know. But you’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. We’ll be wonderful, in fact.” It’s not really something he can say with clear certainty, but he’ll damn well do his best to make it so.

Steve doesn’t really answer, just hums his vague and thoughtful agreement and falls silent. Neither of them falls asleep again, and it’s like they never paused when Bucky says, ten minutes later, “Just don’t make me go to your funeral again. I didn’t like that.” 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, like he could have helped it, like it wasn’t necessary. He rolls onto his side to face Bucky, and he’d protest the movement and that he’s now not balancing his ribs properly and putting weight on bruising he shouldn’t be putting weight on, but he finds the words lost when Steve pulls him forward, wraps around him close and tight and he can barely breath with it all, with the emotion he’s been shoving aside all day. 

“Not again,” he says eventually, and ignores the way his voice comes out thick.

“Never,” Steve answers, his arms tightening just a bit. 

“If you don’t like it, you can come back to life when this is all sorted and it’s safe. People like zombie stories. It’d be good,” he says, deliberately changing the subject back to what they had previously been talking about. He doesn’t want to dwell on Steve being dead for too long. He’s going to pretend the first part of this day never happened.

“Right.” Steve’s word is a breath against Bucky’s hair, a reluctant agreement that this might be reversible later, if Steve wants it to be. Bucky doesn’t think, in the end, Steve will want it to be temporary, but he doesn’t say that aloud.

“Go to sleep,” Bucky says finally, not feeling like having that discussion right now. He’ll argue when they’re both less emotionally strained, when Steve’s more likely to be receptible to anything that doesn’t match his opinions. He doesn’t tell Steve to move into a more comfortable position because he doesn’t want him to let go. Instead he clings a bit more than is below the threshold of embarrassing, his right hand gripping Steve’s back at his shoulder blade, his left trapped somewhere between their bodies.

He glances up only to find Steve’s eyes still open minutes later, unfocused toward the wall. He lets go long enough to raise a hand up, places it gently over Steve’s eyes so he focuses on that instead. “Stop worrying. Sleep. Close your eyes. That’s step one.” 

Steve smiles, grabs Bucky’s hand, kisses the palm before letting go again so Bucky can resettle it on his back. His eyes are closed throughout, though, so Bucky counts it as a win. 

It takes awhile, but Steve does eventually fall asleep and Bucky hangs on until after that to do the same. Tomorrow’s another day, one where the air will still be brisk will be fall and the country will still be mourning a national icon, and where Bucky (alive-dead-alive) and Steve (alive-dead-alive-dead again) will have to make plans. That’s tomorrow, though. He’s good at forgetting unpleasantness. For now he sleeps tucks up against Steve and pretends the funeral never happened, until the next day and all it carries with it.


End file.
